The issue for me is why Labour haven't done so much better to bring people they need to represent along with them. They had long enough in opposition to learn the lessons of Corbyn's unpopularity and the many mistakes made by the Conservatives failed leaders.
They should have been alerted by the Brexit vote and the popular response to the 'trans' and similar narrow obsessions that they were losing their connections with ordinary workers. People had clearly had enough of the Tories and I bet most people couldn't tell you what the LibGreenEtcs stood for. They gave Labour a very decent majority and mandate, even in Scotland they came back from the dead.
But almost immediately, Labour began losing people's trust with some tone-deaf flagship policies (winter fuel, farmers) and when they made belated noises about illegal immigration and rowed back on some of the metropolitan culture wars they looked like disapproving schoolteachers reluctantly allowing the kids to play conkers at break. Starmer gives the impression of being a leader who will change his direction to appease threats from inside his own party or from what his researchers tell him various bits of the electorate are thinking.
I live in what was once a northern Labour heartland, a large, enterprising market town near a large city which was red practically from the beginning of Labour. After the Brexit and Boris years, my town mostly voted - not overwhelmingly, but decisively - for Labour again at the last election. Locals in person and on social media now constantly criticise Labour's economic and social policies and Labour is no nearer to a rapport with these constituents than they were in their wilderness years. Labour no longer represent the working people of my town. I would add that the town is not uniformly white, and the longstanding south Asian community don't like Labour any better than anyone else.
Labour politicians come from too narrow a political, social and regional class. They don't seem to want the voters they actually have, maybe they want fantasy voters conjoured up from the pages of the Guardian. I think the broad political instinct where I live is socially conservative, old moderate Labour, old Liberal party. But those parties no longer exist.
People round here respect the idea of their country - not uncritically - hard work and community. They are small business owners, government office workers, farmers, hairdressers, publicans, nurses, tradies, drivers, pharmacists, teachers, IT bods, forces families, market-stall holders, cleaners, retirees in bungalows, dog-walkers and multigenerational restauranteurs. They're recyclers who look after the environment, grateful for state benefits where needed, for local parks, the local hospital and council carers. Previous generations of their families knew harder times. They are not fools or uneducated, regardless of whether they went to yooni.
Now we've got Reform councillors and St. George crosses painted on the roundabouts. Will they give Farage a go?What astonishes me is how quickly Labour lost them.